


Ship to Wreck

by sibley (ferns)



Series: Heartlines [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Disability, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Polyamory, The multiverse, the vanishing point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 04:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12622984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: It's achingly hard for Barry to feel like all of him is loved sometimes.





	Ship to Wreck

It’s achingly hard for Barry to feel loved sometimes.

He doesn’t know how to make Iris and Cisco  _ understand.  _ It’s not just self esteem issues, since all three of them have those and even though she hasn’t outright told him he’s fairly sure Cindy does too. It’s-it’s the feeling of being  _ lesser  _ because of the episodes. The feeling that they’re loving him in spite of his mental illness and not loving it as a part of him.

Barry knows it’s stupid. Not the fear itself, but the fact that he’d think that they would. Back when they first started dating, Cisco had told them both that if they ever made a point of loving him  _ despite  _ of the fact that he was autistic or  _ despite  _ of the fact that he was trans, he wasn’t going to tolerate it. Barry had understood and so had Iris and that had been that.

So why wouldn’t they extend the same to him?

The logic of it didn’t do anything to soothe the frantic anxiety spiral that his brain takes him on, a dizzying downward plunge of worries and fears that Iris and Cisco don’t love all of him.

Maybe the worst part is that they might not. Maybe the worst part is that  _ he  _ knows he  _ hates  _ that part of him and everything it stands for-the cold, uncaring, and unfeeling speedforce, the episodes where he’s not in control of himself and doesn’t know if he’s going to hurt somebody on accident or not. The fear at the back of his throat whenever he sees Iris that when their children are born that he’ll end up cursing them with this somehow.

Barry needs someone to love that part of him when he can’t love it himself.

It’s achingly hard for Barry to feel loved sometimes.

He tells Iris and Cisco about it, finally, when they’re curled up together on their bed with Iris in the middle. Cindy’s asleep, nose nuzzled into the base of Cisco’s neck and one hand stretched into the middle so she can rest her hand on Iris’s stomach.

Iris rubs her thumb over his cheekbone and promises she loves  _ all  _ of him-she doesn’t love him in spite of the slipping at all. It’s a part of him and she loves all of him. Even when he doesn’t love himself, she’ll love him.  _ Always.  _ There’s no catch. There’s no unspoken ‘what’s left of you’. Like Barry’s somehow  _ less than  _ he was before.

Cisco, careful not to disturb his sleeping girlfriend, squeezes Barry’s hand as he assures him that they love him no matter how much he loves every part of himself. Assures him that he loves Barry with the timeline slipping and with the episodes. He loves Barry because he’s  _ Barry  _ and because the episodes are a part of that he loves them too.

Barry holds them close and cries because he  _ knew  _ it but the anxiety that swirls around under his skin just like the lightning does makes him want to vomit and he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to handle it even now that he knows it for certain.

It’s achingly hard for Barry to feel loved sometimes.

* * *

Cindy throws her black bag down on Barry’s table in front of him and points at his chest. “You’re coming with me.”

His mouth goes dry. His dynamic with Cindy is… Strange. He doesn’t love her like Cisco does, like Iris  _ might,  _ but he does care about her for their sakes even if he hasn’t spent a lot of time with her. She scares him, to be honest. She’s all red flashes and bright eyes and sharp daring and a twisted kind of royalty. “Uh, what?”

“You’re coming with me. Cisco thought this would be good for you. He said on your last slip you saw something bad.” Cindy crosses her arms. “I have to agree. Which means you’re coming with me. C’mon.”

“Where… Where are we going, exactly?” Barry finishes his pancakes as quickly as he can. His stomach twists. He’s not  _ angry  _ that Cisco told Cindy he had a difficult episode, but… He still doesn’t know what to think about the carnage that he saw. (Bright burning red and blood everywhere and someone screaming before getting abruptly cut off and oh, god, how can he  _ stop this-)  _ “Do I need to bring anything?”

“No. And we’re going somewhere that will help you. Cisco and I went there once with my dad.” Cindy’s eyes gleam red as she outstretches her hand to him. “Now come on.”

Barry stands and hesitantly accepts her hand. He’s not sure he wants to go somewhere with her that she won’t tell him about-he wouldn’t want to go anywhere with  _ anybody  _ if they refused to properly explain it-but he’s willing to try anyway. He  _ does  _ trust Cindy.

She pulls him through a breach and he automatically closes his eyes against the visions he knows he’ll get. He doesn’t want to see this. He gets enough of the timeline when he’s slipping, even if he can’t remember most of it.

“We’re not there yet, but we’re halfway. You get a thirty second break.” Cindy lets go of his hand, and Barry opens his eyes.

It… Looks just like home. Except… Brighter, somehow.

“Where are we?” He asks, swivelling on his heel.

“Earth-33,” Cindy answers. “No, you don’t get to look around. This place freaks me out.”

“Why?” Barry brushes his hand over the table that he was just sitting at. There’s no food there anymore, just dust.

“There’s no superheroes here. Or metahumans at all.” Cindy hugs herself. “But it has these…  _ Affects.  _ Everywhere in the multiverse. Especially your Earth, for some reason. I don’t… I don’t know how to explain it. Also, the thirty second break is over.”

She takes his hand again and pulls him through another breach before Barry can ask what it is about Earth-33 that allows it to affect everywhere else.

This time when he opens his eyes, it’s to jagged black rocks and swirling blue energy that freezes on his lips.

“Welcome to the Vanishing Point.” Cindy lets go of him and immediately starts walking. Barry stops gawking at everything around him and rushes to follow her. “This is where the Time Masters used to be. Or will be. Or still are. Time is a strange place.”

“Don’t you mean a strange  _ thing?”  _ Barry cocks his head.

“No.” Cindy stops and Barry almost bumps into her, just barely managing to stop himself. “We’re here.”

It’s a large spotlight shining down. At first he thinks it’s a single beam, but when Barry’s eyes focus he can see that it’s split into tiny, nearly microscopic threads of light.

“What is it?”

“This is the timeline. Everything that is, and will be, and has been.” Cindy reaches out to it but doesn’t let her fingers actually make contact. “Or at least, all those little threads are a possible timeline. Every single choice we make splits that up beam of light. The future's  _ not  _ set in stone. Whatever you saw? That’s not a promise. Every single thing you see is not a certainty.”

Barry sits down heavily on the floor and watches those beams of light. “I-oh.”

“...I was awake when you told Cisco and Iris that you were afraid they didn't love all of you. Just the good parts.” Cindy sat down beside him. “If it’s any help, they were telling the truth when they said they loved every single part of you. Cisco couldn’t lie to you anymore if he tried and even though Iris’s vibrations have gotten… Confusing… Since she became pregnant, I could  _ tell.  _ I’m a walking lie detector. They love you more than you give them credit for sometimes.”

“I know.” Barry hugged his knees and wondered what this choice would do to that light. “I  _ know.  _ But it’s so hard to feel loved sometimes.”

He’s not sure if he’s ever said that out loud before instead of just alluding to it while dancing around the actual words. 

“Yeah.” Cindy digs her fingernails into her thigh. “It is.”

They watch one of the tiny threads of light split.

**Author's Note:**

> Earth-33, if you're wondering, is our Earth, according to Grant Morrison.


End file.
